


Jace, belonging, and low expectations

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Meta crossposts [1]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Character Analysis, Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-05-31 07:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6461443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of meta reflexions on Jace Lightwood from the <i>Mortal Instruments</i> double-trilogy I wrote in 2014 when <i>City of Heavenly Fire</i> had just come out. It doesn't take into account the revelations/canon elements of <i>Welcome to Shadowhunters Academy</i> or Lady Midnight, which I haven't read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jace, belonging, and low expectations

**Author's Note:**

> This is crossposted from my Tumblr, with the original post [here](http://terresdebrume.tumblr.com/post/98974568961/archive-repost-jace-belonging-and-low). Thanks, too, to tumblr user [particlenumber13](http://particlenumber13.tumblr.com) who sparked the reflexion on this topic.

I’ve been wanting to write some meta about Jace for a while, tbh.

It was going to be a very angry post along the lines of “why does fandom buy into the idolatry of an abusive asshole?!”… but while I still think Jace is an abusive asshole and I still dislike him immensely, I also want to try and be fair to his character as much as I can…because to be frank, I wouldn’t mind him being an abusive asshole so much if someone, anyone, called him out on that once. Which no one does in "verse.

And regardless, I also tend to think it’s unfair to him that even the narrative of TMI disregards that aspect of him because it means ignoring why he is who he is, and therefore take away much of his literary depth and potential.

So, without further ado –but with the hope to interest at least one or two people beside myself- here’s an attempt at decoding Jace Herondale (/Lightwood/Wayland). At least somewhat.

 

The first background information we get on Jace is Isabelle telling Clary that he saw his father get murdered when he was ten. While that gets surprisingly little attention in the following books (and I’m honestly not fully certain I’m qualified to talk about _that_ type of trauma) another thing we learn about Jace in the early chapters of _City of Bones_ , is this:

> “Once there was a boy,” said Jace.
> 
> Clary interrupted immediately. “A Shadowhunter boy?”
> 
> “Of course.” For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. “When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors—killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky.
> 
> “The falcon didn’t like the boy, and the boy didn’t like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn’t know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father had told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father.
> 
> “He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it—instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen.
> 
> “He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like light. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he nearly shouted with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud.
> 
> “Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. ‘I told you to make it obedient,’ his father said, and dropped the falcon’s lifeless body to the ground. ‘Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.’
> 
> “Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he’d learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.”
> 
> Clary, who had been lying still, hardly breathing, rolled onto her back and opened her eyes. “That’s an awful story,” she said indignantly.
> 
> Jace had his legs pulled up, his chin on his knees. “Is it?” he said ruminatively.
> 
> “The boy’s father is horrible. It’s a story about child abuse. I should have known that’s what Shadowhunters think a bedtime story is like. Anything that gives you screaming nightmares—”
> 
> “Sometimes the Marks can give you screaming nightmares,” said Jace. “If you get them when you’re too young.” He looked at her thoughtfully. The late afternoon light came in through the curtains and made his face a study in contrasts. Chiaroscuro, she thought. The art of shadows and light. “It’s a good story if you think about it,” he said. “The boy’s father is just trying to make him stronger. Inflexible.”
> 
> “But you have to learn to bend a little,” said Clary with a yawn. Despite the story’s content, the rhythm of Jace’s voice had made her sleepy. “Or you’ll break.”
> 
> “Not if you’re strong enough,” said Jace firmly. He reached out, and she felt the back of his hand brush her cheek; she realized her eyes were slipping shut. Exhaustion made her bones liquid; she felt as if she might wash away and vanish. As she fell into sleep, she heard the echo of words in her mind. _He gave me anything I wanted. Horses, weapons, books, even a hunting falcon._
> 
> —City of Bones, ch.11: “Magnus Bane”

What we learn from this story is that Jace was, on the one hand, spoiled rotten, and on the other hand, a victim of severe emotional abuse. (Considering the culture he lives in and the way Valentine treated Jonathan/Sebastian, it’s possible that he was also physically abusive, with Jace, if more occasionnally than he was with Jonathan.)

This is later confirmed by Valentine’s own words:

> And Valentine, his voice hoarse: _It wasn’t a son I needed. It was a soldier. I had thought Jonathan might be that soldier, but he had too much of the demon nature in him. He was too savage, too sudden, not subtle enough. I feared even then, when he was barely out of infancy, that he would never have the patience or the compassion to follow me, to lead the Clave in my footsteps. So I tried again with you. And with you I had the opposite trouble. You were too gentle. Too empathic. Understand this, my son—I loved you for those things._
> 
> — _City of Fallen Angels,_ as quoted in _City of Heavenly Fire_ , ch. 10: “These violent delights”

 

So for the first ten years of his life, Jace alternatively received the message that he was above the rest of mankind, and deserved to be rewarded just for existing, but at the same time well below the level of emotional detachment Valentine wanted him to reach, for which he deserved to be punished.

I can only imagine how damaging that has to be for a kid, to be taught he’s not good enough for the only social group he’s supposed to belong to… in other words, the message Jace gets is that he doesn’t deserve to belong anywhere, and this until he’s ten.

After he’s ten and his father gets “murdered” in front of him –it occurs to me that, as far as I remember, we never got a detailed account of how that happened, which is a shame. But like I said, that’s not what I’m going to be talking about, otherwise I’ll have to write a novel, and I don’t feel like doing that.

Once “Michael Wayland” died, Jace is taken in by the Lightwoods, as we know. Now, this might be talked about in later chapters of _City of Heavenly Fire_ , but up until chapter 9 of that book, it is never made clear what made Robert take Jace in. Did he genuinely care for the boy? Did he do it out of a sense of Shadowhunter duty? In memory of his parabatai bond with Michael? (Was _that_ connection even mentionned in the books prior to COHF? Memory fails me, I’m afraid)… so unless Jace had a heart to heart with either Robert or Maryse at some point, he had no way to know whether or not the Lightwoods truly wanted him around or if they took him in because they had no other choice.

(And given what we know of the Lightwoods, I’ll bet anything said heart to heart never happened.)

So Jace goes from a household where he’s learned he doesn’t belong anywhere, to a household where he’s been tossed without proof that he was actually wanted, and where even the “actual” son is treated at best with distance, at worse with disdain. [1] At the same time, he’s also being praised for his talent in hunting and his bravery when he takes risks and comes out of a mission successfully.

And see, when you look at Jace this way, he actually starts to make sense as a character.

Because when you’re trying to fit into a community (family, social group, etc.) there are several ways to do it: you can do it in an affirmative way, by taking parts in shared activities –in this case things like hunting, sparring, etc.- or in a dissociative way, by pushing out the people you think don’t belong in the group –by dismissing them or their hobbies, for example.

 

Interestingly, you can find both aspects of that in Jace’s relationship to Alec as it is written in the books (though I don’t know if Clare intended it to appear that way).

Like, on the one hand, Jace asked him to be his Parabatai, which is an unbreakable bond: it ties him to the Lightwoods as a family, makes him as good as Alec’s brother and Robert and Maryse’s son… in a way, becoming Alec’s parabatai is the only chance Jace had at having parents, no matter how good or bad they were at parenting.

And at the same time, Jace often dismisses Alec and his concerns, his desires of interest. Look, for example, at this quote:

 

> Jace leaned forward and banged his hand against the partition separating them from the cab driver. “Turn left! Left! I said to take Broadway you brain-dead moron!”
> 
> The taxi driver responded by jerking the wheel so hard to the left that Clary was thrown against Jace. She let out a yelp of resentment. “Why are we taking broadway, anyway?”
> 
> “I’m starving,” Jace said. “And there’s nothing at home except leftover Chinese.” He took his phone out of his pocket and started dialing. “Alec! Wake up!” he shouted. Clary could hear an irritated buzzing on the other end. “Meet us at Taki’s. Breakfast. Yeah, you heard me. Breakfast. What? It’s only a few blocks away. Get going.”
> 
> — _City of Bones_ , ch.11, “Magnus Bane”

Keep in mind that this happends right after Jace took Clary to the Silent City so she could get her mind looked at, and not only is Jace waking Alec up, he’s doing so indecently early, without any form of apology, or consideration for Alec’s protests –unless the “buzzing” on the other end of the line is Alec shouting in excitement but given Jace’s response, I highly doubt that.

So that’s one instance in which Jace gives zero fuck about what Alec thinks or feels, and just expects him to do as he’s told (the reasons why Alec actually does as he’s told is a topic for another, related but different, meta post.)

 

There’s also the time when Jace almost outs Alec in front of strangers in _City of Ashes_ (which I talked about in more details here, so I’m not going to develop it too much in this meta) and this event:

 

> Alec, who was looking important, ignored this. “Jace, you brought the vampire here, so you’re in charge of him. Don’t let him go outside.”
> 
> _The vampire,_ Simon thought. It wasn’t like Alec didn’t know his name. He’d saved Alec’s life once. Now he was “the vampire.” Even for Alec, who was prone to the occasional fit of inexplicable sullenness, this was obnoxious. Maybe it had something to do with being in Idris. Maybe Alec felt a greater need to assert his Shadowhunter _ness_ here.
> 
> “ _That’s_ what you brought me down here to tell me? Don’t let the vampire go outside? I wouldn’t have done that anyway.” Jace slid onto the couch beside Aline, who looked pleased. “You’d better hurry up to the Gard and back. God knows what depravity we might get up to here without your guidance.”
> 
> Alec gazed at Jace with calm superiority. “Try to hold it together. I’ll be back in half an hour.” He vanished through an archway that led to a long corridor; somewhere in the distance, a door clicked shut.
> 
> “You shouldn’t bait him,” Isabelle said, shooting Jace a severe look. “They _did_ leave him in charge.”
> 
> Aline, Simon couldn’t help but notice, was sitting very close to Jace, their shoulders touching, even though there was plenty of room around them on the couch. “Did you ever think that in a past life Alec was an old woman with ninety cats who was always yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off her lawn? Because I do,” Jace said, and Aline giggled. “Just because he’s the only one who can go to the Gard—”
> 
> — _City of Glass_ , ch.2, “The demon towers of Alicante”

 

Now, I agree Alec seems to be puffing himself up, and that probably looks a little ridiculous.

However, this is one of the very, very few times (if not the only one) where we see him being given and asserting any kind of authority –the only time, really, where he’s not following Jace’s instructions, and Jace’s first impulse is to defy his authority and mock him as soon as he’s gone.

It’s interesting, to me, that Simon remarks on Alec’s need to assert his “Shadowhunterness” because when you really look at it, it’s Jace who always does that.

Jace is the one who divides the world in terms of Nephilims vs. Mundanes, Nephilims vs. Downworlders, those who have fun (like him) and those who are boring (like Alec). Out of the two, it’s not Alec who spends the most time and energy reminding people of what he is, of where he belongs.

I think a part of Jace spends so much time telling people how great he is because he (unconsciously, I believe) thinks that it’s the only way they’ll keep seeing any kind of worth in him. That if he doesn’t remind people that he belongs to the superior class of Shadowhunters (both in the sense that Shadowhunters are superior to all other categories of people –according to Valentine- and in the sense that he’s a better Shadowhunter than others, because that’s what he’s been raised to be) then they’ll forget him and he’ll end up being treated… well, worse than Alec is.

Another interesting thing, in my opinion, is that Jace does not want to die.

In reading these books, I haven’t once gotten a suicidal vibe off him –self-destructive, on occcasion, yes. Very complicated self-image? Yes. Insecurities? Yes. But suicidal? Never. This contrasts with Jace’s recklessness and the fact that he regularly ends up in situations where he needs to be rescued, sometimes at high costs, like Alec getting stung by a greater demon, for example.

I say it’s interesting because, to me, it’s a sign that Jace isn’t reckless so he can hopefully die. I think he’s so willing to throw himself in dangerous positions for two reasons: one, because he’s been taught nothing, in terms of hunting should be impossible for him to undertake. Given that Valentine’s idea of a functionning groupe was a cult centered around his personality, I’ll bet you everything you want he taught Jace not to rely on others, and that if he couldn’t do something on his own, then he’d completely failed.

The second reason why Jace endangers himself so much, I think, is because he wants to be rescued.

If he’s about to die and people save him, then that must mean they care about him. That must mean he does belong with them. That must mean he’s actually as good and valuable as he’s trying to convince them he is –that must mean he’s worth being loved with lower conditions than the ones Valentine opposed him.

Maybe even unconditionnally.

 

In the end, when I try to look at Jace past the layers of assholery and abusive behavior (which, I admit, I don’t do too often) what I see is someone whose issues are a lot more similar to Alec’s than they seem at first, but who has a very, very different way of dealing with them –in parts because of their different upbringings, and in parts because they have pretty different personalities.

(I’m willing to bet, if you take the self-esteem issues away, Jace would be an extrovert, while Alec is more of an introvert.)

Which, all in all, is pretty sad, because I’m sure if they could just sit down and talk, then they’d get a chance of really developping something close to an actual brotherly relationship instead of just clinging to the fact that they’re parabatai to make up for the lack of actual emotional care.

Then again, they’re essentially child soldiers, so it’s really not a surprise they wouldn’t be encouraged to sit down and talk about everything that’s gone wrong in their lives –they’d never have time to hunt again.

 

* * *

 

Also, after I initially posted this meta, [battybirds](http://tmblr.co/mtf-Zm9rlF3Q55_lnL_2FVQ) was kind enough to look up and provide the following elements:

_Hi! So, I was pretty sure that Valentine physically abusing Jace was mentioned. After a bit of searching, I found this:_

> _She shook her head. “I don’t see what’s so great about Idris. It’s just a place. The way you and Hodge talk about it-” She broke off._
> 
> _He closed his hand over the shard again. “I was happy there. It was the only place I ever felt happy like that.”_
> 
> _[…]_
> 
> _“How could you have been happy there? I know what you thought, but Valentine was a terrible father. He killed your pets, lied to you, and I know he hit you- don’t even try to pretend he didn’t.”_
> 
> _A flicker of a smile ghosted across Jace’s face. “Only on alternate Thursdays.”_
> 
> _“Then how could-“_
> 
> _“It was the only time I ever felt sure about who I was. Where I belonged. It sounds stupid, but…”_

_It’s on pages 479 and 480 of my copy of City of Bones._

_I think that’s the only time it was discussed. I thought you might like to know. Jace saying he felt like he belonged in Idris seemed relevant too._

[See [this post](http://battybirds.tumblr.com/post/93464414690/on-jace-belonging-and-generally-poor-life-examples) for battybirds’ original comment]


End file.
